feeling of being
by closingdoors
Summary: They're full of almosts. The summer before season four. COMPLETE.


My mind's distracted and confused  
My thoughts are many miles away  
They lie with you when you're asleep  
Kiss you when you start the day  
 **\- Kathy's Song, Eva Cassidy**

* * *

 _This was 100% inspired by Laura's amazing mix 'feeling of being', which I have linked on my profile. It is totally worth the listen. You might cry. (You will cry.)_

* * *

The first time she dreams of him, she has no scars.

Her feet are swishing through the water, the lake lapping at her heels as they sit on the edge of its pier. His hands tangle with hers, resting on the wood between them. They're soft, his hands – but large. Strong. Encompass hers completely and warm her own cold ones.

They're watching the waves she's making roll against each other as crickets chirp around them. She's not quite sure where they are. The world around them seems familiar, or is it just relaxing? She's not sure. The sky is the same shade of blue as she remembers, but she's never known this pier. The sun is high in the sky, and warm, and when she looks down at herself she's only wearing a bikini top and shorts. Her skin is clear and smooth and she turns to him. She wants him to touch her.

"I love you," he tells her.

"I know."

And it's important, so important. When he leans in to kiss her she's repeating it back into his mouth.

* * *

His call comes when she's fuzzy from the medication. Her chest is tight and she is trying to find a way to unwind it without coming apart altogether.

"I just wanted to see how you are," he tells her. "Nobody had heard from you back here."

She shifts, only slightly, still unable to walk on her own without leaning on her father. Still, the small motion sets her body aflame, streaking through her spine like electric. She tries to hide the quick intake of breath, the way she has to grit her teeth to breathe through the pain. It's not enough, though – she knows he hears. Stays silent. Doesn't push. But listens.

"I'm trying to get back on my feet."

Her father walks back into the room, leans down to put out the fireplace out for the night. It crackles in the air between them, flames snapping at the air desperately until it reduces itself to smoulders. When he rises, he glances between her and the medication, offering her an arm even as she keeps the phone by her ear, listening to Castle's breathing. It is healthy, his breathing – but she can imagine he has nightmares, too. The ones that steal breath away from lungs, sneaking away with it in the darkness.

"Is Josh helping you?"

Kate reaches for her father and places the majority of her weight on him as they move from the front room to her bedroom in the cabin. Her arm around his shoulders feels too heavy, her hand involuntarily curling into a fist as she tries to take small steps forwards. The footsteps are jarred, but her father is patient – gentle with her in ways that she isn't with herself. Keeps her walking steadily even as the pain curls around her sides until she's laying in the bed and he's tucking the comforter over her as though she's a child again.

"Kate?"

Her father kisses her forehead, and when he closes the door behind him the room is darkness and Castle.

"No," she replies, setting the phone of speakerphone and laying it on the pillow beside her. "Josh isn't a part of my life anymore, Rick."

"Oh."

It's uncomfortable. Sleeping. On her back, it feels like her chest is going to cave in on itself. On her side, she stretches the surgical scars too much, twists them in ways that make them tug against her skin. There's a very specific way she's learned to lay, now, to cause the least amount of discomfort.

"Castle?"

"Yeah?"

The tips of her fingers have gone numb from the medication. She feels her feet tingling, and she sighs, wishing for water.

"Will you stay on the line until I fall asleep?"

She's already halfway there when he agrees.

* * *

Her dreams of him turn into scars.

The space around them is dark. She can faintly make out the hollows of his eyes, the darkness swirling inside of them. One of his hands reaches out, fingers not so much trailing as dragging along her skin. No longer soft. Calloused. Red. With her blood, and when she looks back up at him he's mouthing words she's rejected.

Her hand reaches out, thumb smoothing across his cheek even as it sheds like fruit. Her own skin falls apart beneath his touch, the trail he's marking creating scars everywhere he touches. But she focuses on his lips, and the silent nonsense that spills from them.

She lets him break her.

* * *

The first time he comes to visit her, it's over a month into her recovery. Her father tries to give them space, but the cabin is small, and they end up bumping knees on the small table in the kitchen while her father inhabits the old couch in the front room. He'd passed her the knitted throw from the thing though, lets her add one more layer to herself even as Castle's gaze makes her shiver, bones rattling against each other.

"Is that comfortable? For you?"

Castle's fingers trace against the wooden chair, and she stares for too long. He pretends not to notice and she lets herself smile at him for the first time since Montgomery had been shot. The ringing in her ears from the loud sound of the guns still echoes through her every night.

"The support is relieving, actually."

He nods, and she pushes her food around on her plate.

"How's Alexis?"

The topic of his daughter brightens him, as it always does. He talks animatedly about his daughter, so distracted that he doesn't notice when she only finishes half of her meal, and makes her laugh even as it makes flames lick up her side. She catches the white flash of her smile in his eyes, lets him reach out and press a palm against the side that hurts.

Her father goes to bed too early, false excuses on his lips that none of them believe. He still helps her from the table to the couch though, despite the fact that she is already stronger than she had been two days ago.

Every morning, when her legs dangle from the edge of the bed and she sits staring at the wall, she remembers when she couldn't even sit herself up properly.

"He's a good guy," Castle says. "Your dad."

Kate watches her father leave and smiles. "Yeah, he is. A little claustrophic. But good."

There's no television in the cabin – which has been driving her crazy – so the only thing that hangs between them in the wood burning in the fireplace. She hums, twisting slightly until she's comfortable, stretching her legs across the couch until her feet brush against his thigh. He lets one of his arms lay across the length of the couch's back, the tips of his fingers brushing her forehead when she mashes her cheek against the couch cushion. They're full of almosts.

"You know, you look surprisingly good for a woman who was shot a month ago."

Kate huffs, rolling her eyes. "Way to make a girl feel special, Castle."

"You know you are," he returns softly, one of his hands circling her ankle.

She reaches up, rests her hand atop the hand he has on the back of the couch. Her throat is heavy.

"Stay?"

He shakes his head. "You won't mean that in the morning."

She almost wants to laugh. It's too much like a conversation they'll probably never have.

Instead, she nods her head. He's right. Really. She's drunk on his presence and warm from the medication. In the morning she'll be cold and hurting again, holding him at arm's length even as her muscles scream with the effort.

"One day I will. Mean it."

His eyes hold hers. Blazing skies.

"I'd like that."

* * *

Castle drives her back to her apartment when she's finally recovered. Her dad stays up in the cabin, content there for the summer even though the walls of the place felt like they had been inching in on themselves as the days passed. Makes her give him Castle's number just in case something goes wrong, despite the fact that she's been able to move without hurting for more than a month now.

Summer is beginning to fade as they drive back to the city. She keeps her window shut and curls her hands in her lap, surprised at Castle's silence. He makes no remarks about getting to drive, gives her complete control of the radio – doesn't crack one immature joke.

"Do you still have to attend physical therapy?"

It's the first thing he's asked in miles.

"For a couple months or so, yeah. I want to get back to where I'd been before in fitness level."

She waits for Castle's lips to tug upwards, to make an innuendo out of the word _fit._ It doesn't come, so she looks back out of the window. Watches the haze of deep green trees blurring past them until her eyes grow unfocused and the sound of Sinatra no longer reaches her ears.

He's still silent when they reach her apartment, carrying her bags in spite of her protests. It's unnerving. His silence.

"Hey," she stops him with a hand on his forearm when he almost leaves without goodbye. "Are you okay?"

Castle sighs, ducks his head. "You're going back to the precinct."

She frowns. "Of course."

"You're going to investigate the case again."

There's no answer needed for that. She pushes up on her toes. Her scars tug. Kisses him gently on the cheek and lingers there when his hand settles on her hip.

"I'm sorry," she tells him. For a lot of things.

"I know."

He crowds closer, until they're sharing the same breath, and holds her.

* * *

It's a terrifying thought. Him seeing her with her scars.

The dream she has makes less sense than most of them. She's bare, laying on her back in her bed and it's not entirely unpleasant when she looks down to see him kissing the inside of her thigh. But when he lifts away his lips are shredded, tiny cuts that leave him bleeding and he kisses her navel, leaving blood where he goes.

She reaches for him, but previously smooth skin is sharp against him and she is powerless. It bubbles up inside of her, rolling in her chest until she's crying for him. It makes him stop instantly and she cradles him in her arms, even as the reassuring trace of her fingers between his shoulder-blades leaves scars on his skin.

* * *

"You did good today."

He sets a glass of water on her bedside table and moves away to close the blinds. She prefers the darkness. It makes things easier – shrouds truth in half-confessions and honest eyes in disfigured shadows.

"I did?"

She feels him sit somewhere near her hip, the mattress dipping with his weight. She waits for him to touch her, but he doesn't, so she twists closer to him. He says nothing as the jut of her hipbones presses against the vertebra of his spine.

"Real good."

Everything around her is kind of murky. She doesn't entirely remember when he'd gotten here. She'd called him after her therapy appointment, maybe, desperate to just _see_ him after confessing to Burke that she remembers everything about her shooting. Castle's words cling to her body and she wants to shed them, wants to keep them. It's all too much and riots inside of her every night.

"Rick?"

"Hmm?"

"I remember the shooting."

She'd thought it would be hard, getting the words out. It turns out dealing with the rush of silence after them is the hardest part.

"I made a deal to keep you safe."

It's not what she expects.

Kate sits up, and she feels him turning away from her. It's his automatic reaction now, but she sets a hand on his shoulder, forces him to look at her even if it's what neither of them wants at this moment.

"That's why you don't want me to investigate the case."

Facts and files and dates blur in front of her eyes. Her mother's dead body captured in a photograph. The ring irritating the scar between her breasts. Castle.

"Yes," he admits gravely.

She releases a breath and shuffles closer to him on the bed.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

She swings her legs over the side of the bed until they're sat beside each other. The floor is cold against the skin of her feet, and her arm brushes his as she shivers.

"No. No – it's not okay, but…"

He turns to face her, waiting for her to finish. Their hands find each other's. They're inevitable, she thinks.

"But it's okay," she says finally, and then she kisses him with her eyes open.

* * *

So I take a little time just sailing down the river  
And I'm throwing out my line to see if I can catch the  
Feeling of being  
 **\- Feeling Of Being, Lucy Schwartz**


End file.
